One of Them
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: They have more in common than they thought.


Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.

**One of Them**

by L.M. Lewis

"So I figured it was the least I could do." Hardcastle shrugged. "Got all this room here, and they needed a place to hold their annual alumni scholarship fundraiser."

Mark squinted out the kitchen window, hands on his hips, trying to picture just the glassware alone. "Maybe the least _you_ could do, but it's gonna be a helluva lot more from where I'm standing—"

"_You_? Heck, no—you're getting off light on this one, kiddo. The committee's already picked out the caterer. They're hiring the wait staff and everything."

"Really?" Mark looked suddenly more hopeful.

"Yeah." Hardcastle scratched his nose. "Could you just not drink out of the finger bowls, and wear a nice tie."

"No problem. I've got a couple that aren't clip-on—hey, maybe that silk one from Atlantic City."

The judge grimaced. "All I'm saying is try and fit in a little—these are all law school types."

"You mean _old _school—" Mark shook his head and eyed the man in the sweats and Yankees cap at the kitchen table. "What I'm wondering is how you snuck in."

"I got a couple of clip-on ties, too." Hardcastle grinned. "None with dice on 'em, though."

00000

And that had been most of their planning. The committee even sent a service in to set up the tables and chairs and a bunch of potted topiary bushes—including one of Lady Justice—around the fountain. Mark watched in amazement at the beehive of activity that didn't, for once, include him. Then he headed back into the gatehouse and scrounged up his most decent tie, and a clean shirt, to boot.

He didn't venture out right away, though, still not quite trusting that he wouldn't be pressed into service bearing a tray of champagne glasses. Besides, this was Hardcastle's shindig, and—tie or no tie—he thought he was going to stick out like a sore thumb.

Eventually, though, the notion of canapés and bubbly overcame his native reluctance to rub elbows with upstanding members of the legal community. He thought it was worth making a foray out into the sea of suits to snatch some booty. He took one last long look out the window, across the lawn. The judge wasn't even in sight, so he wasn't likely to be tagged for some last-minute chore.

He slipped out the patio door, shot his cuffs, and adjusted the knot on his number-one tie—the one with no mustard stains. He edged across the garden, which had been transformed by tables and linen into an elegant _al fresco_ dining area.

Coolly courteous nods from people he didn't know, returned in kind. No immediate shouts of "Fraud!" He smiled, slipped his hands into his pants pockets, and settled into something more resembling a saunter. He hadn't realized there'd be that many people attending, and while theoretically that increased the risk of someone knowing he was the ex-con pool-boy, with this crowd the possibility seemed vanishingly small.

He snagged a glass of champagne from one of the passing waiters and headed for the buffet table, feeling a little like Eliza Doolittle at the Ascot. Socializing seemed neither prudent nor profitable. Just by putting in an appearance he'd lowered the average age of the attendees. He hadn't seen anyone besides the waiters much below fifty.

The long, linen-draped table hove into view, complete with ice swan and floral arrangements. Fortune favoring the bold, he strolled up to the end where the plates were stacked, took one, and casually contemplated his choices. One of each seemed the best policy. He briefly regretted the encumbrance of his now-empty champagne flute and looked around for a place to jettison it.

"Over there." The young woman in the dark suit-jacket and skirt, standing not far off from the head of the table, had obviously intuited his need. She was pointing to a tray on a stand which had already collected a few glasses.

"Thanks," he said, depositing his own with the others. He cast another quick look at the woman. She looked entirely at ease in her neat business attire, and eminently in charge. He wondered about that for a moment; she hardly looked like she had hit her mid-twenties—a family business perhaps.

"It all looks great," he said with a smile that was meant to be equal parts friendly and complimentary. "Any suggestions?"

She glanced back at him quickly, as if she'd forgotten he was there, but then an utterly natural decisiveness seemed to kick in. "The shrimp tempura is terrific." She pointed to it. "But it's all good, really," she added with a hasty smile, as if she hated to play favorites.

"Thanks," he said again, going for the tempura first, but not neglecting anything else.

Plate full, he looked around. The tables were mostly taken up by twos and fours of older, legal types and their spouses. He supposed he might slink back into the gatehouse, but that would be inconvenient for seconds. He drifted off a bit, pretending to admire the roses that he'd just dusted for thrips the other day.

He hadn't gone far, and it hadn't been long, before he noticed the young woman again, this time away from her post, also surveying the flowers. On break, he figured.

He sidled over, gradually, but definitely with direction.

"You were right," he said, "the tempura is terrific."

She smiled a little cockeyed at him. "'Course I am, but it's hard to go wrong with a spread like that." Her self-confidence added another year or two to her age. She turned back to her survey of the garden and said, after a moment, and in a quieter tone that already seemed uncharacteristic, "This is such a beautiful place."

Mark looked around, mentally subtracting the crowd of lunching lawyers and all their accoutrements, and trying to separate the end results from all the daily work that went into the upkeep. To his surprise, he found it wasn't all that hard to agree.

"Yeah," he said with sincerity.

She glanced aside at him. "Most men don't appreciate gardens all that much," she said, in a tone that was nearly challenging.

"Most _people_ don't appreciate gardens all that much," he amended mildly, "until they've kept one."

"You garden?" she said, with definite surprise.

He mostly suppressed his chuckle, and nodded.

"I cook, too," then he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, back toward the spread, "but not like that."

"Oh, _that_," she sighed. "Come on, it's just food. All that work and it's gone in an hour. What's the point?"

He frowned and looked down at his already empty plate. She was right, he supposed, but he was a little surprised to hear her disparage her craft. All that self-confidence seemed thinly rooted, or maybe she was just in the organizational end of it. She did seem like the overseer-type.

Now she'd given him a casual but not discouraging nod and was drifting back to the table. A silver-haired matron snagged her arm, leaning in toward her, and asking an apparent question. The young woman pointed off toward the main house and added something that might have been more specific directions. She was definitely the take-charge type. He had trouble imagining her back in the kitchen, putting curlicues on the canapés.

Now, though, there didn't seem to be much need for taking charge. The operation was winding down. The six-piece band had wrapped up a set, and it seemed to be the last. Hardcastle still wasn't in sight. Mark wondered if he might be hiding out down in the file room.

He pondered a second run on the buffet, but even the tempura was failing to seduce him. Still, he headed back there. There was one thing that he still found interesting.

"My name's Mark," he said casually to the young woman. She looked up at him, as if she'd been thinking of something else entirely.

There was a momentary pause before she answered, "Warren, I'm Warren," and that was offered with a slight edge of challenge, too, as if it might not be such a good idea to comment on the oddness of her name.

"I'd say it was a great party but," Mark cast one surveying look around at the remains of it, "except for the food, that'd be lying."

This candor was met with an unexpected laugh from the young woman with the odd name. It was a promising note and called for follow-up.

"You going to be done here soon?" he asked smilingly.

This got him a strange look from her, followed by a glance down at the buffet and another quick calculating look back at him. "Oh, _here_. Well," her smile had gone a little cockeyed again. "I didn't promise anybody I'd stay till the last dog was hung."

He'd obviously miscalculated, but she hadn't exactly called him on it. "Not with the caterers?" he confessed. "Sorry about that. It's just that you looked like you were in charge—"

"No," another laugh, and this one seemed a little pleased, "nobody in their right mind would let me within a mile of a kitchen. You were sort of half-right, though. I'm on the committee."

"You're a lawyer?" He couldn't help it, one eyebrow had risen.

"Law student," she corrected. "The alumni committee likes to have a few student members on board. I got volunteered." She made a face that didn't bode well for the future dignity of the bar.

"Yeah," Mark said sympathetically, "that happens to me a lot—getting volunteered, I mean."

"Junior member of the firm?" she speculated.

"You could say that," Mark grinned.

"Hmm." She was frowning slightly.

Mark felt he'd made a misstep. He cocked his head slightly.

"Oh," she said, "nothing personal. I just don't date lawyers."

His jaw had dropped open. "I didn't—"

"Yeah, but you were going to, weren't you?" Her smile was remarkably self-assured.

It hadn't been much of a mind-reading act, he supposed, and in the process of confessing his intent with a nod, he almost forgot about the other misimpression.

"But," she said, giving him a rather forward once over, "I might make an exception now and then."

Having gotten that far in the negotiations, Mark wasn't inclined to go back and revise the small print. Besides, if he hung around here much longer, Hardcastle would be bound to turn up with a list of clean-up chores.

"Maybe we should blow this joint," he said, waggling both eyebrows in his best imitation of a junior partner on the make. "You like movies?"

"Movies, yeah," the young woman nodded, "but not the artsy kind. Mostly old ones, black and white. The classics."

"Oh, don't tell me you're a John Wayne fan?" Mark's look of horror wasn't entirely faked.

Warren laughed again. "Nope, got my fill of him growing up. I like Spencer Tracy—the Marx Brothers—Bogey—"

"Really?" His jaw went a little slack. It was like finding the missing glove in the bottom of a drawer when you weren't even looking for it. "_Bogart_?" You know there's a festival over at the Valley View." He looked to the west, then down at his watch, and did a little quick calculation. "If we left now we'd make it easy—even have time for a pizza before the first show."

"After all that tempura?"

"I always try to think one meal ahead." Mark grinned.

"Good plan." She was doing a little looking around of her own and had apparently spotted someone. "There he is—I came with someone, my ride. I have to tell him what gives." Mark looked over at the man she was hailing, surprisingly pleased to see it was a sixty-something member of the committee, complete with wife of similar years.

The parting took only a few moments and then he was escorting her down the drive, pleased that Hardcastle had insisted on him keeping his vehicle out and handy for any last minute errands. It was only when they approached the Coyote that he felt a twitch from his date.

"Yours?" She looked up at him.

He shrugged. "Yeah." Then answered her slightly questioning frown with a quick, "Don't tell me—you don't like red?"

She laughed, and there didn't seem to be anything strained about it. "No, red's fine."

He opened the door for her and she climbed in without any hesitance. As he rounded the car and slid in on his side she said, "My last name's Wyngate," with the slightest hint of formality and a feeling that she was waiting for a reciprocation. Mark supposed that was only prudent when getting into a car with a guy you've just met.

"Mark McCormick," he said with a nod of his head. He put the car into gear and slid smoothly out from his space, past all the Caddies and Beemers. Ms. Wyngate said nothing more, but a quick look to his right revealed no unhappiness. The smile on her face had an element of self-satisfaction to it.

00000

The conversation held through two rounds of beer and a pepperoni pizza. The subjects were light but the discussion wasn't always. Warren proved more knowledgeable on the subject of Humphrey Bogart than Mark was and he'd decided early on that what she didn't know for a fact she could probably bluff her way through with sheer dogged determination.

By the time they'd decamped to the drive-in, the first stars were out and the crowd in Sam's place was singing "La Marseillaise"_. _It didn't matter that they'd missed the first part; they both knew most of _Casablanca_ by heart. They settled in with only the stick shift separating them, and a tub of popcorn, unsalted, which was how Warren said she liked it.

They munched their way through that one and _Key Largo_, then _The African Queen_ and an argument about whether Charlie Allnut or Sam Spade was his best role. Warren won, or at least Mark stopped arguing.

"Maybe Phillip Marlow," he suggested mildly. _The Big Sleep_ had started. But, no, Warren was adamant and he was getting too tired to put up much fight. "Okay," he said, "_African Queen_ it is. I hate the bit about the leeches, though."

"That's just because it's real. He really let them put leeches on him," she murmured, her head already down on his shoulder. Her breathing evened out into a gentle snore. Mark, however, was now wide awake.

"_Real_?" he whispered, swallowing hard once.

But eventually Marlowe took his mind off his troubles, and long before the detective had sorted through all the dark details, Mark's chin was down on Warren's head, and his eyes had drifted shut.

He awoke to a sound of multiple metal doors clanging shut. It was chillingly familiar, in his half-asleep disorientation, and it took a moment for him to realize that the sound was coming from the speaker dangling over the sill of the Coyote, and the image of the cell block—only lacking color to be as real as his memory—was up on the screen,

His own movement must've awakened Warren as well. He felt her head lift from his shoulder as she straightened slightly.

"W'time?" she murmured. He started; he'd been mesmerized by what was on the screen.

"That's an oldie," Warren muttered more intelligibly. "_San Quentin_."

He nodded, still staring. "Bogey?"he finally asked.

"Yeah . . . early. The thirties."

He blinked and broke away from his stare. "I never saw it."

"Kinda cheesy," Warren said, shifting around and stretching slightly, then looking down at her watch. "But shot on location."

He caught himself staring again, and then nodded.

"That stuff doesn't bother you, does it?"

He looked sharply to the side and encountered a penetrating look.

"How did you—?" He shut his mouth sharply on the unasked question but she shrugged off-handedly.

"Uncle Milt mentioned you. I didn't put two and two together until I saw the car. He'd mentioned that, too."

Mark was stuck back at the beginning of the statement. "_Uncle_ Milt?"

"Yeah," she said casually, "my mom's brother. You know?"

"No," Mark said, his alarm slowly increasing, "I _didn't_ know." He shook his head, almost hoping he was going to wake up yet again and find this was—

"When were you gonna tell me?"

Another shrug. "When were you going to tell me you were the ex-con who cleans his pool?"

Mark pulled back. The truth, in this case, was more than a little painful. "Well," he said, grimly practical, "I guess we're even." He cast a quick but alarmed glance at his watch. A little after three. He reached for the speaker and jettisoned Pat O'Brien in mid-speech. He jacked the Coyote into reverse and swung them out of the spot.

"Wait a sec." Warren set the remains of the popcorn down between her feet and turned sharply toward him. "'Even'? You're an ex-con who mows the lawn for the Honorable Milton C. Hardcastle and _lies_ about it. I'm a law student who's just related to the guy. How does that make us _even_?"

He spared one quick, angry look to the side, then pulled over, now that they were out on the roadway. He summoned his inner reserves, the ones he used for dealing with difficult people. It dawned on him suddenly that he'd had a lot of practice the past year, honing those skills, and he'd already been using them tonight.

"Listen," he said quietly, "maybe I don't tell people, right off, about who I am and where I've been. I'll admit, it's awkward as hell. That's my excuse. But what's yours? If you didn't think it'd be a problem, why the hell did you keep quiet about it, _especially_ after you knew what was up?"

Warren turned forward again in something that might have been described as a flounce. With her hair in disarray and her face arranged in a near pout, she suddenly looked a good ten years younger.

"I don't date lawyers," she said sullenly. "No lawyers, law clerks, not even any law students."

Mark wasn't sure where the argument was going, but since it didn't seem to be aimed at him anymore, he merely nodded his head.

"They all know him, or about him. He's like some kind of a legend, you know?"

Mark did, sort of, though seeing the legend over breakfast most mornings knocked some of the patina off it.

"And once they know he's my uncle . . . well, then that's that."

It wasn't exactly clear what 'that' she was talking about, but Mark had noticed it—the larger-than-life effect. He didn't suppose most guys would want to deal with the wrath of Hardcastle. He knew _he_ didn't.

He jerked suddenly, glanced at his watch again, and put the car back into gear, peeling off.

"With those guys," he said grimly, "it might mean a dressing down—maybe even a career setback. With me, getting on Uncle Milt's bad side is a one-way ticket back to the Big House."

There was a long enough silence from the passenger side to provoke another quick look from him in Warren's direction. She was wearing an expression of irritating disbelief. "You don't actually think he'd use something like this as an excuse to—"

"That's just _it_," Mark interrupted, trying not to let his foot make the point as well. "I don't _know_ how the guy'd react to his only niece—you are the only one, aren't you? Don't tell me there's any more where you came from." He let out the rest of the breath in exasperation and then finally shook his head. "You have no idea what kind of power a P.O. has—"

"He wouldn't."

It came out with a tone of quiet certainty. Mark tapped the brake and this time gave her a longer stare. He was nearly to a stop and safely on the shoulder before he said, "How can you be sure?"

He was almost glad she didn't blurt out some further high-handed defense of the man. Instead there was another pause, as if she were thinking through something she knew she'd spoken on pure instinct.

"Well," she finally said, still uncommonly quiet, "I'm not sure exactly."

Even on only one day's acquaintance, Mark knew this was an unusual state of affairs for Warren Wyngate.

"Okay," she drew her shoulders back, as though she were preparing to deliver an argument to a jury, "I've known him all my life—he's the one who saddled me with this 'Warren' thing, you know?" She smiled; it didn't look like she minded the moniker too much. "We've always been close . . ." she frowned slightly, "in a prickly sort of way." Her nose wrinkled up as if she'd just stumbled across something unpleasant that had been there a while in plain sight. "I think maybe we're a lot alike."

"I can see that," Mark said. Then he shook his head wearily. "I'm just not sure why I didn't see it right way."

"Well," she shrugged, "might be you've kind of gotten used to it. It's been a year now, hasn't it?"

Mark leaned his head back slightly, taking in the stars. "Thirteen months."

"That's . . . amazing. None of the others lasted more than a month or two." She leaned toward him slightly, as though she were inspecting an unusual specimen. "So how do you do it?"

"I usually don't try and date any of his female relatives, for starters."

Warren smiled and curled up sideways. "Okay, look, the past year, every time we got together he'd take me out for lunch, no invites over to the house. I'll admit, I'm busy, he's busy—we never got together all that often, but, hey, I used to come over and see the roses once or twice a year. So what gives?"

"He didn't want his only niece mixed up with an ex-con—that's what gives."

"Uh-uh." Warren tapped the side of her nose in an all-too-familiar gesture. "It's me. I'm a pain in the butt—you ask him." She looked at him slyly. "He's got you all nice and reformed, and the roses all ship-shape, and here I come—Rights of Man and the Fifth Amendment. Trust me, this has nothing to do with him thinking we might jump in the sack."

"Maybe he thinks I just got bored and went off for a long drive by myself," Mark looked skyward again, muttering. "He doesn't actually _know_ we left together."

"Mark, will you relax?" She reached across and rubbed his shoulder. He shuddered. Then she frowned. "How long did he tell you this custody deal was for, anyway?"

00000

The last stars had been extinguished and the rosy fingers of dawn were tickling the taller trees of the estate when Mark pulled in. All hope of a surreptitious entry was shot down as he came up the drive.

The judge, wearing sweats and a scowl, was thumping the basketball against the concrete, without even any pretense of shooting baskets. This was a stakeout, pure and simple.

Mark was half tempted to swing around the fountain and park the Coyote facing out, best situated for a quick getaway, but that would have been an outright admission of guilt. Instead he pulled up, and tried to look nonchalant as he struggled out and straightened his stiff legs.

"Where'd you go?" The question was punctuated by two quick thumps of the ball.

Mark was well aware of the look he was getting. His suit looked slept in; the tie, loosened, now sported several butter stains and a spot from a small dollop of pizza sauce.

"A Bogart film festival," he said, aiming for casual sincerity, "a drive-in."

The judge looked pointedly up at the now-light sky, then back down at McCormick. "All _night_?"

"We fell asleep for a while," Mark frowned and then added, unnecessarily, "sitting up. And we argued some."

Hardcastle was giving him a stare. "About what?"

Mark sat back on the sill of the Coyote and gave that one a sigh. "About Charlie Allnut and Phillip Marlow, and whether or not you'd throw me back in the slammer for being out past curfew with your only niece . . . she _is _the only one, isn't she?"

Hardcastle nodded.

"Good," Mark said, boosting himself off the car and starting to trudge past him toward the gatehouse door. "One's enough, and I don't think I could handle any more surprises . . . Oh," he turned and flashed a weary half-smile back at the older man, "she wants to know if she can come over for dinner next Friday. She wants to discuss the Fifth Amendment with you."


End file.
